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CICA is a public educational television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada better known as TVOntario (TVO). It is owned directly by the provincial government of Ontario but, unlike the federally owned CBC, TVO is largely funded by donations from the public (particularly from viewer pledge drive contributions), much like the American PBS.

TVOntario is Canada's oldest educational TV service, and the country's second oldest UHF TV channel. It has larger over-the-air coverage in Ontario than the CBC, reaching 98.5% of Ontario with 216 transmitters.

All TVOntario rebroadcast transmitters have the same first three letters in their callsigns (CIC), although not all "CIC" callsigns belong to TVOntario.

1 History

CICA's history dates back to 1970, when its parent organization, the Ontario Educational Communications Authority, was created by former Education Minister Bill Davis. At that time, the OECA produced children's and educational programming which was aired on commercial television stations.

The OECA eventually applied for and won a license for its own television station in Toronto, Ontario, CICA, with the mandate of "[using] electronic and associated media to provide educational opportunities for all people in Ontario." The "CA" in the CICA callsign was derived from the last two letters in the OECA acronym.

CICA began broadcasting on September 27, 1970 with 423,000 watts video and 84,600 watts audio. Its studios were located at 1670 Bayview Avenue and its transmitter was located at 354 Jarvis Street on the CBC tower; the height of its antenna was 550 feet. The station's broadcast name was OECA, sharing the name of its parent organization. In the mid- 1970sMillennia: 1st millennium 2nd millennium 3rd millennium Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s Years: 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 Events and trends, however, the station started to become unofficially known as TVOntario. The name change was made official in 1981Events January-February January Sarawak Chamber found January 1 Greece enters the EEC January 1 Palau becomes self-governing January 4 Sheffield police arrests Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper January 16 Protestant gunmen shoot and wound Bernadette D; the OECA name is still used for official purposes, such as legal notices and copyrights.

In the latter half of the 1970s, the network began adding rebroadcast transmitters in other Ontario communities. Its very first rebroadcast transmitter was added in Ottawa, Ontario on October 25, 1975, under the callsign CICO. All of the network's current rebroadcast transmitters carry the call letters CICA, CICO or CICE, followed by a distinct number between 1 and 99.

In 1995, the Mike Harris government promised to privatize TVO. Although they never carried through on this threat, they did severely cut its budget.

Today, TVO serves 98.5 per cent of Ontario households, on 216 transmitters throughout the province.